


soft hands ; yours too

by wekeepeachotherhuman



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Claustrophobia, Gen, Injury Recovery, Mind Manipulation, Mission Fic, Pining, Poe-centric, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 20:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5680519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekeepeachotherhuman/pseuds/wekeepeachotherhuman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing that seems to keep our trio grounded, through trauma and recovery, is the gentle hands and reassuances from one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	soft hands ; yours too

**Author's Note:**

> Let's pretend that at the end of the movie, Snoke doesn't say that he wants Kylo to go to him for training, or whatever the line is in the movie. Basically, Ren's just recovering from the defeat and trying to lay low. 
> 
> You can follow me on my tumblr [here](http://brandanoquits.tumblr.com), for more fics and stuff!!

Any sort of feeling of celebration rushes out of Poe Dameron pretty quick once he gets back onto D’Qar. The news that Finn had made it off of the Starkiller base, sure, but barely in one piece, hits him like a sucker punch to the stomach. He’s out of his X-Wing pretty quick, down on the tarmac and following the stretcher that gets wheeled off of the Millennium Falcon in a whirlwind. Tomorrow, he’ll probably wonder how the hell he even pushed his way into that fray, positioning himself right at the head of the stretcher, looking down at Finn, haplessly talking to him even though he knows he won’t talk back. 

Nurses and medical droids bark orders at one another. It’s chaos, loud and unadulterated mayhem, but they all seem to know exactly where they should be and what they should be doing. They jostle around Poe, which he takes as a good sign; if it was serious, if they’d needed him gone, they wouldn’t have been afraid to tell him so. 

“Finn?” he tries again as they all barrel through the doors into the medical bay. If it’s possible, it gets even louder. More nurses, droids, surround them. Others (the first responders) fall back and let their colleagues do their jobs. Poe stays right with Finn, one hand gripping the stretcher, the other holding onto Finn’s for dear life. “Finn.” This time, he doesn’t say it as a question, and he speaks louder, more definitive. And Poe swears he feels something: a small and weak returning gesture from Finn. He feels Finn squeeze his hand back. It’s soft enough that, later on, he might suspect that his mind had just been playing tricks on him, that he’d simply felt what he  _ wanted _ to feel, but in that moment, there’s nothing he’s more sure of in the world.

“He’s still responding,” Poe hears one of the nurses say. A rapturous laugh escapes him involuntarily. The relief wearing just as obvious on his sleeve as any other of Poe’s emotions. “The wound’s cauterized, but I suspect there’s spinal damage.”

And that… Well, that’s not good. Not good at all. And then there’s a pair of hands on his chest, gentle but firm. A nurse leans towards him, catching his eyes with her own. “Commander Dameron,” she says. When he doesn’t respond, she gives him a small shake, pulling herself into his focus. “Poe, you’re not allowed to go any further.”

When she uses his first name, that’s when Poe realizes that he knows her. Jargon, Nurse Jargon. She’d looked over him after he’d dragged his ass back from Jakku after crashing that TIE fighter into the desert. Looked over him when the only thing on his mind was  _ the Stormtrooper. Finn. He broke me out. We have to find him. Now, now, now… _

He stops and the stretcher disappears behind another set of double doors. The hurried voices of medics, the whir of machines, fades as they get further and further. A sickness rises up into Poe’s throat. Or maybe not a sickness, but an emptiness. 

 

\--

 

The saloon’s wild. Most of the Resistance fighters are there, and why shouldn’t they be? The fight’s not over, far from it, but they’d fought hard for this victory.  _ Victory… _ It feels a little strange calling it that, as Poe’s sure it does for General Organa, as well. They’d won a battle, but that didn’t mean they were happy. 

Poe’s a little late to the party. He’d gone back to his barracks after leaving the med bay. The thought of facing a hundred smiling soldiers had been too overwhelming and well, that sentiment hadn’t really changed. He still had very little interest in playing happy for the evening, but he sure as hell needed a drink. 

A few fighters clap his shoulder as he walks by them. He offers them a smile, knows it’s not his place to make anybody miserable, but trudges on, makes his way towards the bar, feeling eyes on him the whole way. The constant hum of conversation, the shouting and hooting, the chaos of it all reminds him of the med bay, reminds him of Finn and my God, maybe this isn’t the smartest idea he’s ever had. 

But then: he sees her. He sees Rey: the scavenger, the girl who’d helped both Finn and BB-8 back to D’Qar, the soldier who’d gone after Kylo Ren and had won. From where Poe stands, she doesn’t look heroic. In fact, hunched over the bar, a drink in front of her, she almost looks petulant, sitting beneath a storm cloud while everyone around is mid-hip-hip-hooray. And it makes Poe smile because, there--finally--he’d come across someone who felt the same way he did. 

He approaches her, climbs up on the stool next to her, and she barely even acknowledges him, might even squirm a little in her seat, keeping her eyes downcast, not opening herself up at all to much conversation. He orders a drink for himself and then turns to look at Rey. Her eyes are hardened with focus, but at the same time, she’s giving the mahogany in front of her the thousand-yard stare. He takes a deep breath, goes to speak, and loves the way she’s already rolling her eyes. 

“You don’t look like you’re in the right mood for drinking,” he observes. 

“What do you mean? I’m in the perfect mood for drinking.” She turns her head and finally looks at him proper. “I’m miserable.” Poe laughs and shrugs, conceding that. Alcohol  _ is _ more of an antidote to misery than an additive to happiness.

The bartender sets his drink down in front him. Rey looks at it, then back up at Poe. He takes the glass in his hand and holds it out to her. “I’ll drink to that.” She clinks her glass against his and takes a large swig before they both go right back to the way they’d been before: staring dead ahead, letting their own sadness act as a fort between them and everybody else. 

“You’re Rey,” Poe finally says, acknowledging the elephant in the room. The elephant being, of course, that she’s a Big Deal. She turns back to look at him, still unused to the fact that she’s no longer a nameless scavenger on Jakku working too hard for little or nothing in return, and she nods. “My name’s Poe,” he offers. “Poe Dameron.”

“I know who you are,” she says, but she sounds as though she can’t quite believe it, or that she’s finally being able to put a face to a name she’s heard a thousand times before. “You’re BB-8’s master,” she continues.

That word-- _ master _ \--has always rubbed him the wrong way and before he even realises he’s thinking it, he hears himself say: “I don’t like to think I  _ own _ them.” He backs himself up, not wanting to come off as confrontational, and corrects himself: “BB’s my friend.” He offers a weak smile, maybe a little embarrassed, but he loves that hunk of junk and would say that to just about anyone. 

“You were Finn’s friend too,” she says. And it’s not a question, it’s actually more of an answer; an answer to a question that Poe had been shamefully thinking about for a while now: had Finn ever talked about him?

Poe swallows hard and nods. “I was,” he says and cringes. “ _ Am _ .”

He sees Rey stiffen up too, berating herself for how she’d spoken too. She takes another long drink and Poe mirrors her. They both need it desperately. And then Poe’s overcome with just how  _ exhausted _ he is, how heavy he feels. It sits like a stone in his stomach and he’s torn between retreating back to his room or ordering something else. Something  _ stronger _ .  

“He’s very brave,” Rey says, with a sort of detachment that makes Poe wonder if she’s even really saying it to him, but he nods anyway, letting her continue to talk, if that’s how she’d like to deal with this whole mess. She traces her finger along the side of her glass, drawing lines through the condensation. In a room full of people, she just looks so lonely, and it might just be his empathy kicking in, but Poe feels that loneliness right down to his boots; feels it and wants to make it go away, in her and in himself. He reaches out and puts his hand in hers.

She looks down at their hands, not put-off, but momentarily shocked. She doesn’t pull away, but Poe asks anyway: “Is this okay?”

There’s a hint of a smile on Rey’s face, as she’s tempted to ask why soldiers of the Resistance keep wanting to hold her hand, but she doesn’t. She just nods. 

“Good,” Poe says, giving her hand a small squeeze. “‘Cause I think I need it more than you do, anyway.”

 

\--

 

Rey’s ordered to go to Ahch-To to look for Luke Skywalker before Finn’s woken up in the I.C.U. That’s hard on her, Poe can see that. On the tarmac, the Millennium Falcon almost ready to fly, most of the Resistance is out there to send her and Chewie off. General Organa included. It’s a mess of cheers as the ship lifts, but Poe keeps quiet, watching from his place just behind the General. He and Rey had said everything they’d needed to the night before. 

“You get back here in one piece,” he tells her. She’s one step into her barracks, he’s still out in the hallway. They’d eaten dinner together and were now both ready for bed. Poe’s got his hands in his pockets and he talks coy, but Rey can’t miss the sincerity in his voice. “He’ll need you once he wakes up,” he adds. 

_ He, he, he… _ That’s how they’d been referring to Finn for the last few days, like it was too sore to actually use his name. But no matter what, neither of them ever mistake who that ‘he’ is. 

Rey nods and then she smiles. “What about you?” she asks. 

“What? Need you?” Poe asks. 

“Yeah.”

He shrugs and says: “I thought that went without saying.”

She throws her arms around him and letting her go is about the last thing Poe Dameron wants to do. 

 

\--

 

Finn wakes up about a week later, while Poe’s out on a training exercise. Rey and Chewie are still gone. For a cold moment, Finn wonders if his friends have left for good. 

But then Poe’s back, and sorry when he really has no business being sorry. And he’s here, in the I.C.U. as often as possible, even if it’s just to sit in the chair opposite Finn’s bed reading a book, lazily lifting his feet up off of the ground whenever the round, flat-as-a-pancake, sanitation droid gets too close to the legs of his seat. He’s there when nurses and droids help Finn to sit up for the first time. He’s there when Finn sits up  _ on his own _ for the first time, and as proud and energetic as a parent watching their kid win a race. 

And he’s improving, Finn knows he is. He can feel some strength coming back to him, but it doesn’t feel fast enough, doesn’t feel like he’s doing well enough. In the First Order, a Stormtrooper who couldn’t walk was damaged goods, garbage down the chute, never to be thought of again, and the thought of that makes Finn sick. He dreams about the Resistance finally realizing that he’s beyond repair, dreams about them getting rid of him, of Poe not saying a word in his defense because he knows too that a Resistance fighter who can’t fight is no good to anybody. 

He knows that’s not his fate anymore, logically, he knows that. But that sinking feeling returns every damn time he trips while taking tiny steps, holding onto to wooden bars on each side of his body, trying to get from one side of the room to another. Or when a droid helps him set his pillows right behind his back because twisting in bed isn’t something he can do right now. 

It’s frustrating and agonizing and sometimes Finn can’t keep from hyperventilating. He feels trapped by his own condition, claustrophobic inside his own body. And when he feels that way, nothing matters: not that he’s getting better, or that he’s recovering quicker than people had anticipated. Nothing matters except the fact that he’s not okay  _ right now. _

The only thing that ever really seems to make a difference, beyond the coping exercises he’s been taught, the steady breathing and counts from one to ten and back down again, is the way that Poe always takes one of Finn’s hands and holds it with both of his. Poe, never one to be closed off from physical reassurances, unafraid to help even if Finn might be lashing out. He doesn’t know if it helps because he needs the touch, affection, or it’s just simply because of  _ Poe. _

 

\--

 

Finn’s walking on crutches, back living in a room in the barracks when both he and Poe are summoned to the conference room for a meeting. 

A recon mission has returned, bearing good news: Kylo Ren has been found. He and some men had built some sort of crude base, hoping to keep out of sight, on the nearly uninhabitable Yavin VIII. Poe doesn’t hear much else because even at the mention of Ren’s name, a whole mess of feelings course through him, from head to toe. He wants to say that his blood boils, but there’s not only anger in him, Hell, it’s probably not even what he feels the most of. 

Of course he’s angry; of course he thinks of Finn and what Ren had done to him, was  _ still _ doing to him while Finn worked so hard to recover. And of course he thinks of Han and how the loss of him affects the General. 

Of course he knows that when the General tells him: “I need you to lead a team to Yavin VIII,” he’ll be reckless with that anger. Confidence and bravery, those are the things that had made him the best fighter pilot in the Resistance. He had no idea what anger could make of him. And fear. Fear borne in that chair Ren had tied him to and dug into his mind without permission. Fear borne of that happening again for himself, but also for the people whose secrets he’d be too weak to keep from him. He clasps his hands together behind his back because he knows they’re shaking and nods. 

“Yes, Ma’am.”

He can’t help but pity himself when he notices as he’s getting dressed in his pilot uniform that his hands are still shaking. He clenches them into fists, releases and repeats. And nothing seems to work. 

He laughs: one short, bitter laugh. How could he keep Finn from shaking when he couldn’t even do the same thing for himself?

 

\--

 

Poe thinks he and Finn made the right decision--keeping their goodbyes short and sweet--until a TIE fighter gets his X-Wing over Yavin VIII and he knows he’s going down. He does everything he can, tries to find a way to make this landing as smooth as possible. He hears Jessika Pava over his comm, forgetting about any sort of military hierarchy, saying his name. He can hear her voice shaking and he knows what he has to do: be brave and remain professional. Go down in a way that General Organa would be proud of. 

More TIE fighters barrage his squad. Another pilot, Renaud, says he’s been hit, and there’s just no fucking reason for any more of his own to crash land, so he takes a deep breath, pulls up on the joystick and:

“Black Squad,” he says, putting his commander voice on. “Report to General Organa that our mission failed.”

“Poe--” That’s Jess again.

“Get back to the base. We don’t need to lose anybody else.”

“Poe, we’re not leaving you,” Jess implores. 

“No way, Cap,” Polmar adds. 

Poe smiles, even though he really doesn’t have much reason to. His team is brave, willing to die to help other soldiers. He knows he’d be saying the same thing,  _ had _ in fact, when his own commander had gone down during a mission back when Poe was new to the Resistance. 

He doesn’t even try to hide the smile in his voice when he says: “You guys act like I’m giving you a choice.”

“Like Hell you aren’t!” Jess interjects. 

And that’s when he knows that the only way through this is with some sort of tough love. There’s no convincing his team while being soft, so he keeps his voice strong and stern: keeping all of his mother’s lessons close to his heart. 

“Jess,” he says sharply. The comm goes silent. He knows he’s got everyone’s attention. “You follow me. You die. You follow me, the Resistance loses a whole squad to these thugs. You wanna explain that to the General?”

There’s a pause and when Jessika’s voice comes back over the waves, he can hear her resignation. “Wouldn’t we all be too dead to explain anything?” And despite himself, he laughs. He laughs, but he doesn’t respond. The swampish green of Yavin VIII starts to come into view in front of him and he knows got about thirty seconds. 

“We’ll come back for you, Poe,” Jess says. 

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” he responds flatly. 

The grounds gets closer and closer and he focuses on Jess. She’s not talking to him anymore, she’s throwing orders at the Squad and she sounds  _ good _ . She sounds like a real leader. In his head, he counts down from three and presses the eject button in his X-Wing and feels his stomach race into his throat as he pulled up and out of the ship. He keeps his eyes closed, glad that he’s alone and finally able to show that he’s scared, and then a parachute opens up behind him and catches his fall. 

He opens his eyes once he starts slowing down and Yavin VIII looks pretty cool from up here.

He lands in a heap, the parachute landing over him clumsily. He unbuckles himself and sifts through the thing fabric, trying to find the edge of it. He’s on solid ground, which on Yavin VIII, is actually pretty spectacular. The place is mostly water and marsh. He pulls the parachute over his head, feels his hair fall over his forehead and is just glad to be able to breathe right again. 

He’s on his knees, feeling more relieved than he ever has in his life. He sits back on his heels and brushes his hair back, taking a few deep breaths. He smiles, happy to be alive, stands and turns and--

“Oh,” he mutters. 

There are three stormtroopers in front of him. Their helmets are off and they’re huddled around a crate with dealt cards in their hands. And they’re just watching him. Even though their blasters are right at their feet. They’re as surprised to see him as he is to see them. For a split second, he actually feels more socially uncomfortable than he does physically unsafe. 

He hitches his hands on his hips and then juts his chin out towards their card game. “Is it too late to deal me in?”

At the sound of his voice, it’s like they all suddenly turn on. They all go for their blasters and point them right at him. 

Poe nods. “I’ll take that as a no.”

One gets closer to him, giving him the usual:  _ hands up, don’t move _ , as if he had any other options than to be captured. He puts his hand on Poe’s shoulder, balling up the orange fabric of the Resistance uniform and then raises his blaster, the butt of it ready to come down against his temple at any second and then:

_ Dark. _

 

\--

 

When he wakes up, and he’s strapped to a chair. He feels all the oxygen in his body suddenly disappear. He’s been here before, and he can’t fucking breathe. Every part of him feels cold and he allows himself one moment of fear, allows himself to wish for one second that he’d died in his X-Wing, but that’s it. When the moment’s over, he replaces those thoughts with  _ be brave, be brave, be brave. _

He starts to look up, winces at the crick in his neck, and then there’s Ren, standing opposite him, just watching. He feels sick, wondering if he’d woken up, simply because Ren had willed it. 

He remembers:  _ be brave, be brave, be brave, _ and smiles coyly. “Déjà  vu,” he mutters. Ren’s quiet, still as a statue. “I said ‘déjà vu’,” he repeats, though he knows he doesn’t need to. Bravado has always made him chatty. “It means--”

“I know what it means,” Ren responds, and Poe almost bites his tongue at how quick his shuts his big mouth. “And since we’ve been here before, you know how this will end.”

Poe knows he’s probably right, knows Ren’s stronger than he is, so he simply shrugs, trying to play it cool, but knowing Ren can sift through all the things he’s thinking. 

“Tell me where the girl is,” Ren says. He steps forward and Poe feels his skin crawl. 

“The girl?” Poe asks. “This is a big Galaxy, pal. You’re gonna have to be more specific--”

Before he even gets the last word out, Ren’s got his hand out in front of him and every muscle in Poe’s body stiffens and he knows he’s lost all autonomy. He panics almost instantly. His heart races and he hates himself for letting this all happen to him again. 

He hears Ren’s voice in his head:  _ The scavenger. _ And he just wants to scream  _ get out! _ But nothing happens. The room around them is dead quiet. His joints tighten in a crescendo and then there’s nothing at all. He doubles over, heaving, feeling exhausted and wired at the same time. He aches all over and just wants this to be over. 

“She’s looking for Luke Skywalker,” Ren says, and Poe hates how calm he sounds. Poe wants to scare him. Wants to throw him off in any way that he can. He deserves to be taken down a peg and Poe desperately wants to be the one who makes that happen. He thinks of Rey and he wants to be the one. He thinks of Finn and Han and wants to tear this petulant child in front of him apart. “Tell me: has she found him?” 

Poe chuckles sadly and talks. Talks because he knows that if Ren gets one second to really search for that answer, he’ll find it, cutting through Poe’s mind far easier than he’s ready to admit. “Cutting right to chase, huh?” He looks up at Ren, raises his eyebrows and adds: “What? No romance?”

Ren turns, a flare of dramatics that Poe has to scoff at as his cape waves behind him. “I’m tired of your jokes.” There’s something in his voice that Poe hadn’t heard the last time he’d been taken by the First Order. There’s a real urgency, a spontaneity, or something. Ren’s haunted by the fact that he doesn’t know where Rey is. He’s haunted by the uncertainty Poe can feel he has in his own strength and power. And this Poe can work with. This, he can manipulate. “I’ve taken what I need from you before,” Ren says, glancing over his shoulder. “Don’t think I won’t do it again.”

And against every instinct Poe Dameron’s got, he feels unafraid. He leans forward, eyebrows raised, and wants to smile, because for the first time with Kylo Ren, he feels like he might actually have the upper hand. Ren’s still reeling from his defeat on Starkiller base. He’s not himself; he’s emotional and reckless. 

“Then I would do it fast,” Poe taunts. Slowly, Ren turns to face him. “Because I’m sort of a big deal in the Resistance.” He hears Ren scoff, but doesn’t care because Ren can disbelieve him all he wants, doesn’t make the fact any less true. “And I guarantee you that they’re sending a rescue mission for me. On orders from the  _ General _ .” Ren takes one fast step towards him, clearly wanting to lash out, but preserving what little self-control he still has. And Poe knows that it’s that self-control that he needs to attack and destroy. And the way that Ren had sneered as he said the word ‘General’, Poe knows exactly how. He meets Ren’s eyes, holds steady and says: “Your Mother won’t let me die.”

And that strikes a chord. Ren stands a little straighter and uses the force. Except this time, Poe can feel that he isn’t actually looking for anything. For the next five seconds, he doesn’t want any information, he only wants to hurt the best pilot in the Resistance, wants to hurt anyone that he can so he can feel a little less of his own. And pain is something Poe can take. Pain is something that he can beat. Ren hits every nerve in Poe’s body, tearing through him. He feels blood drip down over his lips from his nose. He closes his eyes, trying to keep from shouting out and relishes the short moments where he feels his head fog up, unconsciousness getting a hell of a lot closer and then it all just suddenly stops. 

He’s out. For who knows how long.

 

\--

 

He remembers waking up a few times, but he’s always alone. Ren is never back, ready to start the interrogation over. He remembers haplessly tugging at his bonds even though he knows there’s no way in hell that they’ll budge. These short conscious moments feel more like a dream than real life. Some of them, in fact, he’s not even sure really happened. 

He remembers hearing Stormtroopers around him. He remembers them talking candidly with one another when they think he can’t hear them. They don’t talk about war, they don’t talk about Ren and it makes Poe wonder how many more of them could be like Finn. How many more could suddenly have a change of heart?

And this time, before he even opens up his eyes, he can feel how alone in the room he is. He can’t hear any troopers breathing heavily through their masks, can’t hear the way their boots scuff along the floor. He opens his eyes, lifts his head, and it feels like the hardest thing he’s ever done. He’s exhausted, every part of him is sore, but something isn’t right. Something’s up and he wants to be ready for whatever will inevitably come through the open door in front of him. Again, he tugs at his bonds and then he hears it: blaster fire, shouts. The stormtroopers are fighting  _ somebody _ . Then whoever that is fires back and… Poe knows those guns. Resistance. 

Relief washes over him. He feels it momentarily swallow up any sort of pain or fear he’d had. He lets himself collapse a little in his chair, knowing that now, it’s just a matter of time before someone gets him out of here. He keeps tugging, with a little less urgency this time, but just wants to get the job started. 

“Poe?” The voice is faint, a couple hallways away, but he recognizes it immediately, and the relief inside of him doubles. Jessika Pava. She’d come back, and he wonders how he ever thought that she wouldn’t. 

“Jess!” he calls out to her, not really caring about any troopers who might hear him, and might be closer by. He just needs to see her face. He can’t keep from smiling and his chest heaves a little, just at the spectacularity of the situation. He’s safe and he feels like a little kid finally getting home from a vacation: desperate for familiarity and the comforts he’s had to go without. 

He hears Jess pick up her pace; her footsteps echoing through the empty hallways. She’s running and Poe wants nothing more than to be out of this chair so he can meet her halfway and wrap his arms around her and never let go. She takes the corner into his room at top speed, looking like she might slip. Poe can see the same relief in him mirroring in her. Her smile erupts and rushes to the chair, crouches down in front of him, and smooths his hair out of his face, a soothing gesture, but also something that lets her know that he’s  _ really _ there. 

When she gets one of his arms out, he can’t help but just pull her against him. He hears her laugh and wriggle as she keeps untying his other arm, simultaneously ignoring and adoring his affection, the way you would with an over-excited puppy. 

He hears a voice over her comm: “Commander? Have you found Dameron?”

And that’s when Poe pulls away, still smiling, and looks her over. “Commander?” he asks. He shakes his left hand out of its bond and laughs when Jess rolls her eyes before getting started on the ones around his ankles. “I’m gone a day and you already take my position?” She mumbles something back into her comm, something about falling back to the ships and then she smiles up at him and says: “Yeah. And you’ll have to pry it back out of my cold dead hands, Dameron.” He laughs and lets his hand loll backwards, giving into the tiredness really starting to creep back into his bones. “Plus, it’s been more than a day,” she adds, shrugging nonchalantly. “They needed to appoint somebody.”

“More than a day?” Poe asks, almost to himself. 

Jess doesn’t respond and it makes him wonder just how long it’s been, and just how many times Ren had actually been in here and wiped any memory Poe might have had of it. Was that even how the Force worked?

She stands when she’s got him untied and holds out her hand. “Can you walk?”

Poe looks out at her hand, knowing that the answer is probably no. He sighs, shrugging, and pulls himself out of his seat. She steadies him once he’s standing, looking worried and a little protective. She’s got one hand on his forearm and the other on his back, waiting for answer, loyal and compassionate enough that she’s fully prepared to carry him if she has to. 

So, vaguely, he decides on: “We’re about to find out.”

She helps him through the base, letting him put as much weight on her as he needs to. They pass a few troopers, down and out, but no Resistance. poe hopes they’re all safe, back in their ships and ready to take off to D’Qar as soon as he and Jess are ready to go. 

When they get outside, Poe sees that some soldiers have already started to take off. Others are climbing into their X-Wings and as Jess helps him up into her’s, he looks over his shoulder, down at her. “We didn’t lose anybody, did we?” he asks. 

“What?” She pushes him up further on the ladder, trying to get a move on. 

“During the rescue mission,” he clarifies. “Did we lose anybody?”

She gets him in the ship, straps him in and smiles. “Nope.” 

Poe feels any remaining worry start to fall away from him. He relaxes into his seat and nods. “Good,” he mutters. He closes his eyes, hears Jess climb into her seat and is out before they even get to light speed. 

 

\--

 

He’s fairly certain that he walked himself to the medbay, but he hardly remembers it, and the fog of his drugs he feels over himself by the time he wakes up for the first time makes it hard for him to remember  _ anything. _ But he sees Rey sitting in the chair beside his bed. Her eyes dart somewhere across the room and she says: “He’s awake,” before she leans towards him. 

To his left, he hears footsteps and then Finn’s there too, standing behind Rey, his hand on the back of her chair, smiling, and it’s so fucking infectious that, despite himself, Poe smiles back. “Hey, buddy,” he mumbles. His voice is smooth, laced with drugs and he just wants to laugh at how  _ fucking high _ he is. 

“Poe Dameron,” Finn answers. He side-steps Rey, comes right up to the bed and puts his hand on Poe’s shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

“Peachy,” Poe replies, closing his eyes again. He hears Rey laugh and it’s honest-to-God the greatest sound he’s ever heard in his life. There’s something about this--where he is right now, who he’s with--that feels divine. (It was probably the drugs.)

 

\--

 

He’s released after a day or two, just in for some observation, and told to just take it easy for a little while. He’d been out on Yavin VII for four days, as he found out. Both Finn and Rey are there as he leaves. They guide him towards a room that isn’t his and Poe has the grim thought that maybe the base had assumed he’d be dead so he wouldn’t need his old barracks back, but when Finn opens up the door, Poe immediately recognizes it as a space that is definitively Finn-like. 

There’s a cot in the middle of the room. Actually, it’s more just like a mattress laid out on the floor with some sheets over top of it and--

Flowers on the windowsill. A handmade doll sitting up against the planter they’re in. And that doesn’t scream Finn so much as it screams Rey. He looks down at Finn’s bed, unmade, two sets of pyjamas throw haphazardly onto it from this morning and... Oh-...

And Poe’s talking before he even realizes that the best option is to just keep his mouth shut. He points to Finn’s bed vaguely and licks his lip, getting uncomfortably and flustered even before the conversation starts. 

“Oh,” he mutters, trying for nonchalance, but failing miserably. “So you two are... “ And he stops. How does he say this? Does he go for bluntness or delicacy? He decides to go with absolutely nothing at all and lets the questions dissipate into nothingness in the room around them. 

Finn and Rey exchange a look and that’s as much of answer to his unfinished question and he needed. For some reason, he feels a little sad, not really knowing why. He knows he’s not being pushes away by either of them.  _ Clearly. _ They’ve set up a cot in their room for him, for Christ’s sake. He knows it’s petty, knows that these negative emotions are immature and shouldn’t exist, so he just tries to swallow them. Tries to ignore them. He looks down, tries to avoid Rey’s eyes as she steps towards him. She reaches out and takes his hand gently. 

“I know how it feels to have him in your head,” she says. Her voice is low enough that Poe knows that this conversation is just meant for the two of them. She squeezes his hand and that makes him look up at her. Her eyes are wide and earnest. And she  _ does _ know. She knows exactly how awful it is to have someone pick your brain without permission. She knows how violating that is, and how hard it is to acknowledge as something traumatic. “You shouldn’t be alone,” she finishes, and Poe hadn’t even realized how much he’d been dreading those dark, lonely moments before he falls asleep until right this instant. He doesn’t realize just how scared of it he’d been until he suddenly no longer has to face it. 

But he can’t. He can’t put them out like this. They’re happy together, Poe could sense that the moment he met them both, and obviously, he wants to see them both happy, even if he’s not necessarily the reason for it. He shakes his head, the way you’re supposed to when you’re imposing yourself on somebody. “I’ll be fine,” he says. 

She squeezes his hand again and steps even closer. “Poe,” she tries again and he knows she won’t take no for answer. He looks back down at the cot, then to Finn, who smiles reassuringly, if not a little meekly. He doesn’t want to push, Poe can see that, but he wants him here too. So he relents. He sighs and starts to nods. “Okay,” he concedes. “Just for tonight.”

“Good,” Rey says, taking his hand with both of her’s. “‘Cause I think I need it more than you do anyway.”


End file.
